Electronic document editors are widely used in homes and businesses today. Familiar examples of these editors include word processing applications that operate on personal computers (PCs) and note-taking applications that operate on personal data assistants (PDAs). These applications strive to replace paper as the simplest means to record and communicate information. However, to replace and enhance paper's utility, the electronic document editor must allow the user to place document objects on a page and to edit, move, resize, and add objects, while ensuring that the user can clearly view the individual objects.
Note-taking using a free-form document editor can be enhanced by using certain hardware devices. For example, an electronic tablet can be used to record handwriting and input the handwriting to a conventional computer. Such electronic tablets typically comprise a screen and a handheld device that is similar to a pen (also referred to as a stylus). A user can use the pen to write on the electronic tablet in a manner similar to using traditional pen and paper. The electronic tablet can “read” the strokes of the user's handwriting with the handheld device and render the handwriting in electronic form on the tablet's screen or the computer's display as “electronic ink.” Additionally, the user can create a drawing or text onto blank areas on the page using the stylus and electronic tablet or using a keyboard, pointing device, or other input device. These areas of text or images are called document objects.
Some document constraints can reduce a user's ability to take notes efficiently and effectively using a conventional document editor. A free-form document editor operates to eliminate some document constraints by enabling free-form note taking. Accordingly, the free-form document editor has a different document behavior than a word processor document editor.
By eliminating some document constraints, a free-form document editor may trigger a need for object management in free-form document editors. By adding new objects to a page, or editing, moving, or resizing existing objects, one object may collide with another object on the screen. This collision could either cause one object to cover another, obscuring information in that covered object, or, as traditional electronic document editors do, merely bump the lower object vertically down the page (a one-dimensional solution). Neither of these approaches would allow the free-form document editor to maximize its two-dimensional character. Additionally, in some cases, a user may want the objects to overlap. As such, the system uses a method that resolves collisions two-dimensionally while allowing user flexibility.